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Tensions ratchet up in eastern Ukraine as European monitors arrive to probe shootings

As rebels’ hold on region continues, deal struck last week in Geneva meant to calm the situation appears poised for collapse.

A statue of Vladimir Lenin stands in the town square in front of the city council building Monday in Slovyansk, Ukraine. Pro-Russian militants have taken over the council building and other government buildings in the city demanding independence from Ukraine. (Scott Olson / GETTY IMAGES)

Ievgeniy Gorbik, a spokesperson for the pro-Russian militants occupying Slovyansk, speaks to media in front of a tank parked near the Ukraine Security Service building on Monday. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

SLOVYANSK, UKRAINE—It’s unlikely anyone here in this prosperity-starved town of 150,000 aspires to the title of world’s weirdest city.

But it is surely in the running. Case in point: at sundown Monday, thundering explosions erupted somewhere above the Toronto Star’s $23-a-night hotel room in Slovyansk, now the epicentre of the pro-Russian putsch pulsating through eastern Ukraine.

The cacophony could have meant any number of terrible things, given that barely three blocks away the city’s police, state security and administrative buildings are occupied by armed mutineers determined to sever ties with the new government in Kyiv.

But no. What it actually meant is that the bowling alley upstairs was back in business. Ten-pin thunder is all it was, with the strike zone right above our heads.

The lanes were on hiatus when reporters arrived Sunday in a chase for the elusive truth behind an Easter morning checkpoint attack that left (we think) three men dead.

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But Monday, as Ukraine’s three-day religious festival wound down and the tense separatist occupation ratcheted up, at least a few locals found the will and energy to throw off steam in the alley above.

Surreal doesn’t begin to cover the jarring juxtapositions playing out in and around Slovyansk. They are tragicomic yet deadly serious, as a deal struck last week in Geneva meant to dial down the mess appears poised for collapse.

Among Monday’s developments: OSCE monitors, now numbering 150 throughout eastern Ukraine, managed to penetrate Slovyansk for the first time, for face-to-face meetings with local separatist leaders who claim kinship to what they call the “People’s Republic of Donetsk.”

But the self-proclaimed “people’s mayor,” Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, then informed reporters, “We did not negotiate, we talked. We told them our position, what happened here, and they told us about their plans.” Later, a truck of fresh sand arrived to reinforce the barricades, suggesting rebels are digging in, not out.

After nightfall Monday, their hold on the region appeared to tighten amid reports of masked gunmen seizing the SBU security building in nearby Kramatorsk.

Washington and Moscow traded in fresh and brittle news likely to exacerbate tensions, with the U.S. State Department endorsing the release of photo evidence it says confirms a Russian military intelligence in eastern Ukraine.

Russia called the claims “ridiculous.” And in a separate development, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a decree making it easier for Russian speakers across the former Soviet Union to obtain Russian citizenship.

Beneath all this sabre-rattling, Slovyansk is able to do more than just bowl. The Taler hotel/bowlerama complex comes replete with billiard tables and its very own brew pub, cooking up pilsner, golden ale and a darker prazske in quantity and quality to make reporters familiar with the bone-dry conflicts of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya eat their hearts out with envy.

And they very well could, given the menu of the adjoining Taler restaurant, featuring “French-fried chicken hearts,” “pig’s ear in beer batter” and “chicken pocket with Dorblu cheese.” One might recognize the latter as chicken Kiev. But Kiev now is a dirty word in these parts.

Yet nowhere is the scene more curious than on October Revolution Square, where an eight-metre statue of Vladimir Lenin is animated by the high-volume broadcast of Soviet-era patriotic songs from loudspeakers at rebel central, immediately behind.

Sparse crowds of all ages gathered in the vast square Monday, enjoying the last of the Easter break under warm spring skies. But the tension was apparent in angry, short-tempered outbursts to reporters seeking public opinion. And that opinion, whether or not it had anything to do with the presence of armed gunmen so nearby, was very firmly in the orbit of Russia.

The lone exceptions — a cluster of college students enjoying the last of the Easter break before returning to their studies in the city of Kharkov.

“What people need to understand is the huge gap between generations — the parents want to be with Russia, but their children don’t,” one of the students told the Star, agreeing to speak on condition he only be identified by his first name, Mikhail.

“We all were born in independent Ukraine and we are proud of it. We have no memory of the Soviet era. We want to be friends with Russia and friends with Europe. But almost everyone my age wants not to choose between one and the other. We are happy in-between, unified and independent.”

Mikhail, 18, now embarking on a degree as a data systems engineer, called the insurgency “confused and strange” because the new leadership in Kyiv had already committed to what the region wants: a guarantee of Russian language rights and greater autonomy to run its own affairs.

“There is too much propaganda and both sides are guilty of lying. The Kyiv TV turns grey into white. But the Russian TV is worse; they turn black into white, and the older generation is brainwashed by it.”

But the greater offence, Mikhail said, is (that they) “pulled down the Ukrainian flag and threw it in the garbage” when they stormed city hall.

“I’m offended by that. And so are all my friends. The older people in this city don’t seem to mind at all. But we do. And we’re the future.”

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